


Lives By Breaking

by Lady Sarai (lady_sarai)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-27
Updated: 2006-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_sarai/pseuds/Lady%20Sarai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The heart breaks and breaks / and lives by breaking."  8 ways Narnia can break a heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lives By Breaking

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yuletide 2006 for anomilygrace. Thank you to everyone who made my first Yuletide so much fun that I keep going back! Thanks also to my wonderful betas, who beat this and me into submission.

  
The heart breaks and breaks  
and lives by breaking.  
It is necessary to go  
through dark and deeper dark  
and not to turn.  
_-Stanley Kunitz, "The Testing Tree"_

~~*~~

i.

It is late, but Peter finds himself unable to sleep. He sits up, reading. He has a notion that Narnian history books once amused him, but he can't quite place why.

His door opens quietly, and without looking up, he says, "Good evening, Lucy."

"How did you know it was me?" She crosses the room and climbs on his bed.

Peter puts his book away and smiles at her. "You never knock. It's all right," he says quickly, noting the color rise in her face. "I don't mind."

Lucy tugs absently at the blanket. "I've forgotten again."

Peter crosses the room and sits beside her. "What is it you've forgotten, Lu?"

His sister curls up under his arm and laces her fingers in his. "Tell me about Mother, Peter. I know we had one."

"We did," he murmurs, keeping his voice as even as possible. He realizes that he can not picture her face, and what he remembers feels like images from a dream. He recalls promising to look after his siblings, but it seems such a redundant vow. Stalling for time, he asks, "Do you remember our father?"

Lucy turns her face to him. She says, "I remember you."

 

ii.

Edmund dreams of wolves, stone and ice. He hears her voice in the wind as the weather changes.

He tries not to show how unsettled he grows as winter approaches. He does what is expected of him. He throws himself into the work of ruling Narnia. He does his best to avoid sleep; in his dreams, winter is endless.

Their subjects do not notice that their younger king is haunted by demons of his own making, but his siblings know. A tacit understanding passes among them, and Edmund finds that he is rarely alone.

Susan reads with him in the evenings, and walks with him when he grows restless. Occasionally they talk, but Susan seems to recognize when Edmund needs quiet--she is simply there.

Peter always seems to know when he can't possibly stay within the walls of the Cair another moment. They ride together, and race along beaches and frost-coated plains. Though Peter is growing battle-weary, he drills with Edmund until neither boy can hold their swords.

When he wakes after a vivid nightmare, Lucy is there. She curls up next to him and hugs him tightly. "Winter will end, Edmund."

When the snow melts, he breathes deep.

 

iii.

"Why would Father Christmas give me a gift I'm not meant to use?"

Susan says, "He's only doing what he feels is best."

Lucy flings herself into a chair. "It isn't fair." She feels like a petulant child. "It's _my_ cordial; I should decide how to use it. He doesn't trust my judgment."

"_That_ is unfair." Susan rests her hand on Lucy's shoulder. "He feels horrible, you know. I think he's a bit frightened to come see you, after what you said."

Lucy feels a burning knot in her stomach and is uneasy. "Peter's never frightened."

"You might be surprised." Susan kisses the top of her head. "Get some rest. We leave tomorrow."

"I'm not coming."

Susan grips her shoulder tightly. "Lucy, _don't_," she pleads.

Lucy doesn't respond. She is feeling hurt and childish. Nothing Susan says will change her mind.

Peter comes to speak with her, but she does not open her door.

She watches as her siblings leave without her; every night, she has nightmares.

When they return, Peter is limping. Lucy runs to him and throws herself into his arms. Clinging, she weeps. He holds her.

"I'm sorry." It's uncertain who is apologizing, or why it matters.

 

iv.

Peter finds her in the courtyard that night, practicing her archery. She is restless, angry with herself. He doesn't say anything, but watches until she stops and faces him.

"I'm sorry."

His apology surprises her. Susan frowns. "Why?"

There are many ways she thinks he might answer, but he asks a question instead. "Did you love him?"

"Rabadash?" Susan wants to brush him off with a flippant reply, but he seems genuinely concerned. "No." She smiles wryly. "In any case, after what's happened, I never could."

Peter gives her a wry smile. "I suppose not."

"I wanted to." It surprises Susan as much as Peter when she says this. It's barely something she has admitted to herself.

He watches her for a long moment and asks, "Why?"

"Oh, Peter." Susan looks to the stars and speaks to them. "Don't you want to love someone? To have a family of your own someday?"

Peter is quiet, and at last she looks at him. "I want children, Peter," she says. "I want my happy ending."

He comes to her and rests his hand on her shoulder. "This is our fairy tale, Susan. This _is_ the happy ending."

She hopes he is wrong.

 

v.

As they tumble out of the wardrobe, it is not just his body that changes. Edmund can never be certain at exactly what moment his body reverts from thirty to ten. It doesn't hurt when it happens, not the way it should--bones shrinking, muscles weakening, organs regressing twenty years. One moment he is a man; the next, he is a boy. He braces himself as he falls, but he lands awkwardly on limbs that are too short and muscles that are too weak.

His brain has not yet caught up with his body when Edmund lands on a wooden floor that is anything but the forest he expects. He exhales sharply, and it is at that moment that he realizes what has happened--his lungs are too small and the breath leaves him strangely. When he sees his brother and sisters, he recognizes the ache in his bones.

It is not the transformation that pains Edmund in this instant. It is the knowledge, deep in his soul, that they have somehow been expelled from Narnia.

He feels a rending. A piece of his heart did not come with him through the wardrobe.

His entire soul cries out, "Narnia. _Aslan_."

 

vi.

One morning, Edmund wakes to find Peter sitting by the window. His eyes are red and Edmund finds himself unwilling to break the silence.

They look at one another in the dim light. Peter says at last, "She is dead."

_Oh. _ Edmund finds it difficult to keep his voice even. "There's no way to know--"

"I know."

His grief is that of a man--the man he was--but he is a boy now. It is an awkward fit.

"How can you be certain?" Susan asks, ever pragmatic. "We can't be certain how time is passing there, can we?"

"Peter, have faith," pleads Lucy, when he won't be distracted. "There's always hope."

For once, Peter finds he cannot do as Lucy asks. He knows that she had died, just as he knows that he is a boy in England and not a man in Narnia. His love is dead--or as good as. He will never see her again; he feels this with aching certainty, just as he knows that she would have no way of knowing what became of him.

Peter does not know which knowledge hurts the most--that he mourns her, or that she mourned him.

 

vii.

Susan is a girl, trapped in a body that is just entering that awkward phase in which it seems to change daily. Looking glasses reflect someone she no longer recognizes--and it is more than just her body. She no longer knows who she is, here.

Her siblings have their own concerns and grief. She thinks that perhaps Lucy would understand better than the boys, but she hears Lucy crying in the night.

After Lucy, Susan considers talking to Peter about how it feels, growing up a second time. After all, he is also stuck in an awkward phase between boy and man. But Peter remains kingly in her eyes, even--or especially--in his grief. She finds herself unwilling to add to his burdens.

She is late to breakfast one morning, because she cannot stop looking at her reflection. What has happened makes no sense, and Susan feels that at any moment she might wake up and realize this is all a horrid dream.

Edmund surprises her, appearing in the looking glass over her shoulder with a thoughtful expression. "You know," he says, "my voice changed years ago. I'm not looking forward to going through _that_ again."

He understands.

 

viii.

Lucy cannot sleep at night. She slips quietly out of her room. She wonders if her brothers are sleeping, and checks.

Edmund is in his bed, breathing evenly. Peter's bed is empty, and Lucy wonders where he is.

She wanders aimlessly and finds Peter sitting at a desk by a window.

Lucy says his name softly, because he is writing something and seems to be deep in thought.

"Hello, Lucy."

She crosses the room and stands beside him. "I can't sleep," she admits.

Peter stops writing briefly and smiles at her. "Neither can I." He holds out an arm, and she climbs into his lap. She takes some comfort in being able to do so again.

"Peter," she breathes. "What are you doing?"

She can feel him tense and his voice is too calm when he speaks. "We forgot, before."

He is writing names. Dear names, familiar names of those they've left behind. She puts her hand on his, and stops him from finishing the name of a centaur who died many years ago while saving his life.

_Oh, Aslan, help us. _

"We forgot," Peter repeats.

Lucy turns and puts her arms around him. "We won't forget them," she promises.


End file.
